Note 104 — Chapter III

Clearly, however, it was not to the papists alone that such an explanation commended itself. The Puritan Osborne[104] speaks of the manner in which the "discovery" was managed as "a neat device of the Treasurer's, he being very plentiful in such plots." Goodman, Anglican Bishop of Gloucester, another contemporary, is even more explicit. After describing the indignation of the Catholics when they found themselves deceived in their hopes at the hands of James, he goes on: "The great statesman had intelligence of all this, and because he would show his service to the State, he would first contrive and then discover a treason, and the more odious and hateful the treason were, his service would be the greater and the more acceptable."[105] Another notable witness is quoted by the Jesuit Father Martin Grene, in a letter to his brother Christopher, January 1st, 1665-6:[106] "I have heard strange things, which, if ever I can make out, will be very pertinent: for certain, the late Bishop of Armagh, Usher, was divers times heard to say, that if papists knew what he knew, the blame of the Gunpowder Treason would not lie on them." In like manner we find it frequently asserted on the authority of Lord Cobham and others,[107] that King James himself, when he had time to realize the truth of the matter, was in the habit of speaking of the Fifth of November as "Cecil's holiday."